The most unendurable thing, to be sure, the really terrible thing, would be a life without habits, a life which continually required improvisation.

They muddy the water, to make it seem deep.

Everything good is the transmutation of something evil: every god has a devil for a father.

One must separate from anything that forces one to repeat No again and again.

Historical refutation as the definitive refutation.- In former times, one sought to prove that there is no God - today one indicates how the belief that there is a God arose and how this belief acquired its weight and importance: a counter-proof that there is no God thereby becomes superfluous.- When in former times one had refuted the 'proofs of the existence of God' put forward, there always remained the doubt whether better proofs might not be adduced than those just refuted: in those days atheists did not know how to make a clean sweep.

One has to take a somewhat bold and dangerous line with this existence: especially as, whatever happens, we are bound to lose it.

We are in the greatest danger of being run over when we have just gotten out of the way of a carriage.